In Studio With John Doe: Songs From the Reagan Era Still Resonate

To describe John Doe, you need a list of titles: musician, songwriter, actor, poet, author and now Grammy nominee. He and co-author Tom DeSavia were recently nominated for a spoken word Grammy for their book, "Under The Big Black Sun: A Personal History of L.A. Punk." The punk scene is where John Doe made his mark with the Los Angeles band X, which is celebrating its 40-year anniversary. He joined The California Report Magazine’s host, Sasha Khokha, in studio, with his guitar.

I love the description in your book of landing in L.A. in 1976 and smelling the fumes at LAX. I grew up right next to LAX, so I know that smell. It feels like you’re home. There's this mythical notion of California and the West. It sounds like you still believe in the California Dream.

I do. I think it has a lot to do with the horizon. When you can see a long distance. Growing up on the East Coast, like if you went to the Appalachians, you could see maybe 50 miles if you found a good spot. Here, you can see 200 miles. It’s open. Joshua Tree gives you a different feeling. Going up to the Redwoods, going up to Lake Tahoe, yeah, I still hold onto that.

That’s a big theme in your new album, "The Westerner." You talk about standing on the edge of the ocean, or the Arizona desert. You get the sense of that vast expanse.

A lot of the songs were inspired by my friend Michael Blake, who wrote "Dances with Wolves." He did have a life that was challenging, cancer battles, and all these things. But he always had this optimism. It was always like "what’s over the next hill?" For that reason, and also to be close to him, we recorded him in Tucson, which has that open space, and has that distance, reverb and economy that you get out of the West and open space.

You’ve lived all over California: L.A., the Bay Area and even a stint in the Central Valley. I was really touched by your song, "A Little Help," about farmworkers.

Maybe I’m Pollyanna, but I see a nobility, and I wish that people realized that every piece of fruit that they eat was touched by a human hand. I wish that people did more hard work in the sun. I think they’d have a different point of view. The song is also about two different ways of getting something done, which is to wrench into place, and to grab it and kill it and make it happen. Or just thinking of something, manifesting and letting something happen.

So is there a moment where you say, hey, I want to write a song like this? I want to write a song about people working the land?

No, there’s a moment where I see an image, and it sticks with me. But I don’t go about it as an assignment. It’s a little more mysterious. I just take stuff, and play with some chords. I’ve been trying to do things more intuitively, just let it come out when there’s a good moment.

You’re also very well known for your 40-year legacy with X. Forty years, and you guys are still on the road.

It’s a point at which you can be grateful. Even though you may have had disagreements with band members in the past, we’re all so happy to be playing. We’re playing a different kind of show, some deeper cuts. It’s more like a concert than just a punk rock show.

I grew up in L.A. at a time when punk and artists were responding to the Reagan years -- AIDS and the first wave of Central American refugees. I wonder how you think about those songs taking on a new life now that California is heading in a different political direction than the rest of the country.

Luckily, we didn’t use the name Reagan in any of our songs. We’re playing “I Must Not Think Bad Thoughts” a lot lately. And “The New World” is still relevant. From the point of view of a hobo, a bum, who wanted to get into his bar at 6 a.m. It was closed, there was some election, some president. He doesn’t even know the president’s name, it’s just “what’s his name.” And then in the second verse, we start talking about the decline of Midwest manufacturing. It’s like, hello, that was written in 1983!

So what’s next for John Doe in 2017?

X is going to be touring a lot, ‘cuz it’s our 40th anniversary. I’m going to work on another book, an actual memoir. [Working on "Under the Big Black Sun"] was a pretty good experience. We’re really fortunate that [on the audiobook] everybody read their own chapters. In 20 years, that’s going to be kind of a cool document, to hear those voices talking from the early '80s. It’ll be a pretty good year, I’m pretty sure.

This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.